How to Build Customer Trust Using Social Media
Social media has been a real game-changer, and even the biggest businesses suddenly have to act as if they are small shops. This is because word of mouth is back with a vengeance, and is now once again the strongest form of marketing. One key element of a successful social media word of mouth campaign, however, is trust. People still don’t trust salespeople, so businesses must work extra hard to change this. This is something that expert Matthew F Knouff has been working on, and providing advice on. He has developed a number of key strategies that businesses should consider implementing if they are to be successful.
Learn to Genuinely Care
Matthew Knouff believes that, in social media, the ethics used are the same as those that were used in corner shops three or four generations ago. This means it is about having that personal connection, the first-name basis, with customers again. No longer is the emphasis on making sales, it is once again about being caring.
Building trust is hugely important, but also incredibly complicated. To create these types of trusting relationships, businesses need to get personal. They want to know that, when they shop with a business, it benefits not just that company’s bottom line, but themselves as well. And when that is what they find, they will tell their friends.
Building Trust through Social Media
The strength of social media is that it is social. This means it is an opportunity to show real personality. This has to be done right however. Matt Knouff recommends that businesses:
- Remove barriers, enabling people from a diverse range of backgrounds to work together. Additionally, businesses must take ownership of their own reputation.
- Encourage real interaction. Staff should be able to strike up a conversation with a customer through social media platforms and know that they are doing the right thing. By engaging customers and by getting to know them, trust is built as well. Thanks to social media, interacting in a direct and human way is easier than ever before.
- Build real relationships with their customers. Thanks to social media, this is easier than ever. In the past, finding communities in which a new product or service would be welcomed would take months of research and statistical analysis. Social media, however, makes it easier than ever to instantly find people and to start building relationships.
Social media is an opportunity to share interesting news about a business. In so doing, they engage and interest their customers and staff. Not too long ago, the internet enabled businesses to lower their prices and therefore takeover from their more expensive competition. Today, however, all companies are at rock-bottom prices, which in turn means that they have to come up with different ways to set themselves apart. Building real relationships with customers is the best way to achieve that, not in the least because they will then tell others about this, providing you with that vital word of mouth advertising.
